THIS is how you fight book-banning "concerned parents" ...

 

h/t to Barista.net

A shout-out to the Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees for voting UNANIMOUSLY to keep six YA LGBTQIA+ books available in public libraries.

When it came down to it, the eight residents of five households who had demanded the books be banned did not even have the courage to show up at the meeting.

How do you beat book-banning a-holes (assuming your Governor is not already a book-banning a-hole?)?

This is how:

Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees had received 240 letters from community members and groups about the book ban attempt. More than 40 community members, leaders, librarians, educators, students, parents, elected officials, medical professionals and LGBTQIA+ advocates spoke out before the Board, with an additional 39 community members signed up to speak before the Board closed comments and began deliberations. ...

Glen Ridge resident Phil Johnson organized Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans, a dedicated group of parents, residents, clergy, and educators who fought the ban and brought awareness to the issue with a community response that included a petition signed by more than 2,900 Glen Ridge residents, as well as 300 yard signs displayed around the Borough and a rally that took place before the vote. Many of those who came out against the challenge Wednesday wore one of 300+ t-shirts designed by a local Glen Ridge artist, featuring the town’s signature lamps with a flame in Progress Pride colors, and created as part of Glen Ridge United’s efforts.

Glen Ridge United also announced it has created a fundraiser for the Friends of Glen Ridge Library.

Take note:

1. Show up in LARGE numbers so that the book banners cannot claim they speak for the people

2. If people cannot show up, gather names on petitions

3. Put up yard signs so that people can see the community is against censorship

4. Hold a public rally

5. Somebody step up and take charge

This was a public library, not a school library, so note two important points:

1. The book banners have expanded their targets, and after libraries will come brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, probably with a beginning argument for age requirements to buy certain books. 

2. What worked here WILL also work in a school district, but the book banners are ALREADY well-organized, so this is going to be a lot of work.

Does NCC DE Moms for Liberty support rifling through teachers' desks to find material to report them?

A really intriguing follow-up to my earlier post on Duval County Florida Public Schools pulling the biographies of Rosa Parks, Hank Aaron, and Sonia Sotomayor off school library shelves:

A reader responded by sharing this post on the Moms for Liberty Duval County Facebook page (I put in a link but unless you can convince them to let you join it's "private"):

This raises some really important questions:

• Is Moms for Liberty in Duval County (and elsewhere) sending substitute teachers or parent volunteers into the schools with the specific mission of spying on, and reporting teachers?
• Is a substitute teacher supposed to be rifling through the real teacher's papers on their desk to look for "incriminating" evidence? 
• If that substitute was really concerned, wouldn't that person have more correctly brought it to the attention of the building principal rather than seek the right-wing glory of a "gotcha" moment?
• And -- most important for local readers -- is this the kind of tactic that the New Castle County Chapter of Moms for Liberty supports? This page has been in existence for 30 weeks and so far only attracted 83 members with this lovely header:

We should probably also ask NCC M4L if they support categorizing the magazine and organization Learning for Justice (which has been a respected provider of lesson material about people of color since 1992) as a "leftist groomer magazine."

Here, by the way, is the article that substitute teacher was apparently more interested in than managing her assigned classroom:

There is a critically important legal point to be made here: Learning for Justice is a magazine for teachers, a resource to be used in planning, and the article itself was meant to educate teachers nationwide who might be considering such a lesson. Neither the magazine nor the article is published to be shared directly with elementary school students.

Even under the existing authoritarian Florida law, teacher reading material that is not intended to be passed out to students is NOT illegal. It doesn't violate any law or policy in Florida ... unless Governor DeSantis intends to police adult reading material (which, now that he is in a "damn, I can go lower" pissing contest with Donald Trump for the GOP nomination, might be coming soon).

If you'd personally like to ask that questions of the NCC Moms for Liberty leadership, here's how: they put links to their email right on their website (so nobody can get mad at me for pointing that out).

Finally, I do owe one debt of gratitude to Moms for Liberty: I had never seen Learning for Justice before.

It's a great resource for teachers concerned with their students learning in an inclusive environment (at least until the Thought Police arrive). It's free, and I paged through about a dozen top-flight articles.

To reiterate, here's where you find Learning for Justice. Go give them some love.

The "Show Me" state contemplates a "Don't Say Gay" rule stricter than Florida's

Lawmakers in Missouri are preparing to debate a proposed "Don't Say Gay" law that even its sponsor admits could make a teacher mentioning in a 12th grade class that she has a wife or he has a husband guilty of a felony.

From The Kansas City Star:

Missouri lawmakers are weighing a bill that would ban teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation at any grade level, no matter the class subject. 

The bill is set to be heard Tuesday morning by the Missouri Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee. It would limit any public or charter school staff member from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation unless they are a mental health care provider and have permission from a parent. 

Duval County Florida has banned the biographies of Rosa Parks, Hank Aaron, Malala, Hiawatha, Jackie Robinson, and Sonia Sotomayor

 

... among 175 others.

The mind reels at the sheer audacity of declaring the story of Rosa Parks to be "racially divisive."

The mind melts at the idea that the biography of a sitting Supreme Court Justice is removed from the shelves.

The heart breaks to find out that we have returned to a time when Jackie Robinson is again controversial.

The rest of the list is equally bizarre, including ...